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Food Systems: Nature-Positive Food Production

Explore how nature-positive food production aligns the goals of the Rio Conventions to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation while advancing food security and livelihoods.

Nature-positive food production offers a unified response to the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation—core mandates of the Rio Conventions: the UNFCCC, UNCCD and CBD. It aligns their environmental goals with food security and rural livelihoods, providing a common pathway for sustainable development.

Shared challenges

  • Food systems are responsible for 80 per cent of global deforestation, 70 per cent of freshwater use, and nearly 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, making them central to all three conventions.
  • Industrial agriculture drives biodiversity loss and land degradation while worsening climate vulnerability—issues addressed respectively by the CBD, UNCCD and UNFCCC.
Plowed land
Synergies

Aligned solutions

  • Regenerative and agroecological practices restore soil health, promote biodiversity and reduce emissions .
  • Nature-positive systems use ecosystem services—such as nutrient cycling, pollination and carbon sequestration—as foundations of food production, reducing dependence on external inputs and restoring ecological balance.

Locally adapted, globally relevant

  • Locally-led transitions using agroforestry, silvopasture, intercropping and cover crops support climate resilience, ecosystem restoration and sustainable land management.
  • These practices enhance landscape-scale connectivity, improve livelihood security and reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence, delivering co-benefits across all conventions.
Agroforestry
Cows

Empowering smallholders

  • Smallholder farmers, who manage a large share of the world's agricultural diversity, are key actors in implementing nature-positive practices.
  • Support mechanisms—such as secure land tenure, access to finance and payments for ecosystem services—are vital to scale up transitions aligned with the Rio Conventions' equity and inclusion goals.

Triple-win potential

Nature-positive food systems can:

  1. Mitigate climate change by reducing emissions and enhancing carbon sinks.
  2. Combat desertification and land degradation by improving soil fertility and water retention.
  3. Conserve and restore biodiversity by reducing habitat conversion and supporting ecological interactions.
Salt harvesting
leaf leaf

By aligning food production with the objectives of the Rio Conventions, countries can unlock policy coherence, mobilize cross-sector investments and accelerate progress toward a just, resilient and sustainable future.

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Buffalo

Food Systems: Nature-Positive Food Production

Explore how nature-positive food production aligns the goals of the Rio Conventions to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation while advancing food security and livelihoods.
Asian person in water

Gender Mainstreaming

COP requested the UNCCD secretariat to sustain its advocacy for the recognition and expansion of women’s land rights, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. These efforts build on the global visibility and high-level advocacy achieved through the “Her Land”.